Introduction To Bulgaria

Bulgaria was founded in the year 681, but now is not the
time to discuss its Medieval history. Later we will also speak
of the ancient Thracian, Greek, and Roman civilizations which
each left their mark on these Bulgarian lands. At this moment,
we must concern ourselves with understanding the nature of
Bulgaria today and will quickly summarize key events of more
recent times.

The Turkish Yoke

In the 14th century Bulgaria was captured and brutally ruled
by the Ottoman Empire. For 500 years, the Turks made a determined
effort to destroy Bulgarian Christianity and the Bulgarian
language. In 1876 a rebellion broke out – the famous
April Uprising. The subsequent reprisals of the Turks (famous
as the “Bulgarian atrocities”) provided a reason
for Tsar Alexander of Russia to liberate his neighbours.

The result of the Turko-Russian War was an immense increase
of hopes for Bulgaria. Becoming independent, it stepped into
the civilized Europe it truly belonged to. The peace put a
stop to the ceaseless, grinding, bloody tyranny that had desolated
the Balkans for so many centuries. After the restoration of
the national state in 1878, Bulgaria became a constitutional
monarchy with a democratic governmental system and a rapidly
growing economy.

Government

Fascism began to develop in Bulgaria, as in the rest of the
Balkans, during the 1930s. King Boris III's movement toward
the Nazis was primarily a reflection of Germany's power rather
than a commitment to Fascism. The King was forced to assume
executive authority, as Fascism grew in power. Boris tried
to keep Bulgaria out of World War II, but with the German
Army on the border, he was forced to declare war on Britain
and America and to provide war materials.

Despite intense German pressure, he refused to declare war
on the Soviet Union or to turn over Bulgaria's Jews to the
Nazis. King Boris died mysteriously in 1943 after a stormy
meeting with Hitler. His death was possibly by heart attack
or by assassination. His 6-year old son, Simeon II, succeeded
under a regency to deal with the Germans and advancing Soviet
Army.

Although Bulgaria had a modern history filled with calm and
peacefulness, its land and wealth was surrendered to the communists
as the consequence of an agreement signed between President
Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Generalissimo Stalin
at Yalta, Crimea, USSR (known as the Yalta Conference), on
February 11, 1945, leaving Bulgaria in a blind trust to Joseph
Stalin.

Stalin moved quickly, and the legitimate government of Simeon
II von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was overthrown by Stalin's proxies
in 1946. At the age of nine, Simeon II was forced into exile.
As part of the campaign to legitimise their rule and eradicate
any opposition, the Communists paid close attention to systematically
destroying the institutions of monarchy, demonising the exiled
king and reinterpreting his reign as something out of the
Dark Ages.

During the Communist era, Bulgaria acquired the reputation
of being the most loyal ally of the Soviet Union. A small
agricultural country, here was the Soviet's "bread basket"
and Bulgaria's hard-working, dedicated people managed to regularly
send food to the approximately 280 million people of the Soviet
Union, which consisted of 15 republics and covered 8.5 million
square miles.

With its centralized resources, Bulgaria was able to solve
the problems of industrialization, education and social welfare.
In the course of several decades the country became one of
the main economic partners of the former Soviet Union. Bulgarian
commodities were sold on markets stretching from the Baltic
region to the Pacific. This large-scale growth, compared to
the country's size, took place to the detriment of citizen's
rights and freedoms. In the mid-1980s, a “Bulgarization”
campaign was launched against the nearly 800,000 ethnic Turks,
who were forced to adopt Bulgarian names, and Turkish-language
broadcasts and publications were halted. For 45 years Bulgaria
was a communist state. In 1989 the Bulgarian people mounted
a "velvet revolution" and demanded freedom and democracy

The Bulgarian Democracy

In August 1990, the first non-Communist political leader
in 40 years, Zheliu Zhelev, was elected president. Economic
reforms were introduced and a new constitution (1991) created
a parliamentary democracy in the country. No party, however,
was able to establish a long-term government, and major economic
reforms proved difficult to enact. In 1994, the Socialist
party (formerly the Communists) and its allies won a parliamentary
majority at the polls, and Zhan Videnov, a Socialist, became
premier early in 1995. A period of hyperinflation and economic
stagnation followed, and charges of corruption were widespread.

Petar Stoyanov, of the Union of Democratic Forces, was elected
president in 1996, and his party won parliamentary elections
held in 1997; Ivan Kostov became premier. The UN dealt a serious
economic blow when it imposed economic sanctions during the
1990s on neighboring Yugoslavia. The impact upon Bulgaria
was one of severe economic depression; and as NATO and the
allies attacked Yugoslavia, this little country of 8-million
people, still reeling from the collapse of its huge trading
market with the Soviet Union, saw the devastation of one of
its few remaining valuable trading partners. No serious effort
was made to assist Bulgaria past this loss.

In the parliamentary elections of 2001, the National Movement
for Bulgaria, a party sponsored by the former king, captured
43% of the vote and half the seats, and the former king, Simeon
II, became premier. In the presidential elections later in
the year, Socialist Georgi Parvanov won the post after a runoff,
defeating the incumbent, Stoyanov.

Bulgaria is now a candidate for membership in the European
Union and NATO; the rights and property of the old parties
have been restored. Private property, taken away in the nationalization
and collectivization, has been returned too. Bulgarian ethnic
Turks have the same rights enjoyed by the rest of Bulgaria's
citizens.